Distraction in his aspect

How to distract myself from horrors being done to my country has become a problem.  Some reading helps, but my latest John Grisham novel turns out to have a theme similar to much of the chaos Trump has unleashed: police overreach and out of control police violence.  That is just too topical.

Jigsaw puzzles are good, but hard on my elderly eyesight.

I've tried science fiction, but it isn't really doing it for me.  The old classics of the golden age I have mostly read and others are just a little too overcome by events.  The cyber punk themed stuff I find a bit tiresome - though I did like Neuromancer.  I keep searching for a writer I can really like.  If an author starts out with his own 500 word invented vocabulary, I usually give up in disgust.

So what about the hard stuff?

I have been looking into a few origin of life books, but I may need more chemistry.  The one I'm reading now is painfully slow at getting to any point.  The authors use the phrase "We will argue..." thirty times - dammit, just argue it and be done, I don't need your endless prophecy.  I'm 55 dense pages in and am yet to see any specific ideas of the origins.  Neither have the authors spent the time developing the fundamentals.

I've also tried some math - no luck.  My brain shuts down after a page of abstract definitions.

So how about physics?  I have been reading a bit of MTW, Gravitation, and I still like it.  Maybe I will learn something, but, again, I'm not sure my brain can work that hard.

Oh well.

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